Bride remembers her journey from orphanage

Natthi Kuit recently wed her sweetheart Matt, but it was also a time to celebrate a reunion with one of the women who helped her begin a new life in Australia.

In 1984, Natthi came under the care of the organisation friends For All Children Foundation (FFAC) after she had been left in a Bangkok hospital.

"When I first saw her, she was a tiny baby and I loved her the first time I saw her," said FFAC's Nuttasorn Sirikanth, who became one of Natthi's carers in a Bangkok orphanage.

Nuttasorn, known as Wor, helped unite Natthi with her Australian parents, Jan and Brian Shanahan, to begin a new phase of life, in 1987.

Wor travelled to Australia for the first time recently to be a guest at Natthi's wedding at Mount Gambier in the south-east of South Australia.

"The ladies at FFAC did so much for me while I was little so to keep in contact with them, I feel like I'm giving something back and I don't want to ever lose contact with them because for me and my mum, it's a connection we'll always have," Natthi said.

Friends for All Children is a privately-run, not-for-profit foundation which runs welfare programs for children in Thailand and facilitates adoptions through agencies in Germany, the United States and New Zealand.

Link severed

FFAC says it no longer has an adoption program with Australia so cannot devote resources to getting children an Australian visa.

"I've worked more than 20 years for FFAC and we have a lot of children that need care," Wor said.

"In a year we do the process of adoption for nearly 40 students.

"For a long time we haven't dealt with the Australian adoptions ... it's very difficult. There's a lack of help to do the visas so we can't do them any more."

For Jan Shanahan, who went through the process of adopting Natthi more than 20 years ago, it is difficult news to hear.

"FFAC have a program set up with New Zealand now because Australia became too difficult to deal with. There's so many children that need families and they should be able to do it but it's too hard," she said.

"It's wasn't easy in 1987, but nowhere near as difficult and nowhere near as expensive, it's really priced out of a lot of people's range now and it shouldn't be."

For Wor, her first visit to Australia was an exciting time, seeing Natthi get married and start another phase of her rich life.

"I'm so pleased and appreciative that she has invited me. I never thought I'd come to Australia, I'm very proud of her," she said.